Culture shift evident in safe landing

WASHINGTON — More than three decades ago, a United Airlines jet crashed in Portland, Ore., killing 10 people, because the co-pilot and flight engineer didn’t speak up.

The captain had ignored the flight engineer’s warnings the plane didn’t have enough fuel to land safely. As the tanks ran dry, the junior crew members said nothing, the National Transportation Safety Board found.

The events on a JetBlue flight Tuesday, when the co-pilot locked an erratically behaving captain out of the cockpit and diverted the plane to a safe landing, show how much has changed in a culture once typified by captains browbeating underlings.

“Thirty years ago, I doubt you would have found a co-pilot who would have done this because of fear of going up against a captain and fear of getting fired,” said John Nance, a former commercial pilot.

The United accident prompted a revolution in how pilots are trained, said Frank Tullo, one of a group of airline safety officers who devised new methods starting in the late 1970s designed to give all crew members responsibility for safety.

Co-pilots were taught to speak up if they had concerns. Captains, many from the military where officers were always considered right, were told to listen and encourage others to voice concerns.

The training, known as crew resource management, is now required by the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration.

It has progressed from classroom discussion in its early years to full- blown exercises in flight simulators.

In 2004, the agency expanded the requirement to include pilots at so-called fractional jet operations such as NetJets Inc., owned by Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Inc.

Tullo said the JetBlue crew’s actions were a textbook example of that training being used in an unusual emergency that probably hadn’t been rehearsed.

Examples included the flight attendants seeking help early in the disturbance from passengers if things got worse, and the off-duty captain responding to crew requests for assistance, Tullo said.

JetBlue Capt. Clayton Osbon, charged Wednesday with interfering with a flight crew, was tackled by passengers as he pounded on the cockpit door after leaving and then demanding to be let back in, according to an FBI affidavit. Osbon remains at Northwest Texas Healthcare System hospital, said Caytie Martin, a spokeswoman. She declined to comment on his condition.

The NTSB, the federal agency that investigates aviation accidents, obtained the cockpit voice recorder from the plane and will turn over the recordings to the FBI, Kelly Nantel, a board spokeswoman, said.

The co-pilot became concerned about Osbon’s behavior shortly after the flight to Las Vegas left New York, according to the court filing. Dowd was identified as the co-pilot by a government official who wasn’t authorized to release the information.

The captain had yelled over the radio at air-traffic controllers and rambled about religion, according to the FBI. The co-pilot “became really worried” when Osbon said “we need to take a leap of faith” and “we’re not going to Vegas,” the FBI said in the affidavit.

The co-pilot at that point suggested to Osbon that they invite the off-duty captain to join them, according to the affidavit. Osbon reacted by leaving the cockpit.

With Osbon walking the aisle and ranting, the crew initiated several actions critical to ensuring their safety, Tullo said.

The co-pilot told a flight attendant to bring the off-duty captain into the cockpit, according to the FBI. “The flight attendants had already notified certain passengers they may need their help,” the FBI said in its affidavit.

When Osbon began banging on the locked cockpit door to get back in, the co-pilot made an announcement over the Airbus A320’s public address system asking passengers to restrain Osbon, according to the FBI. The pilots in the cockpit also locked the bullet-proof door to prevent Osbon from using a code to reenter, according to the FBI.

“This is a home run,” said Tullo, former vice president of flight operations at Continental Airlines, now part of United Continental Holdings. “We have really empowered the entire crew to be responsible for the safe conduct of the flight.”